Unfurling: A Max Ride Fanfic
by Mudd Hawk
Summary: Mudd and his flock are on the run - and they want to share their story with YOU.
1. Prologue and Run!

**Unfurling**

**A Fanfic by xMudd**

--

**_PROLOUGE_**

Hey there. Glad you decided to read. The message on the first page? Oh, just to keep out the riffraff. Anyway, now to business.

You've read the Maximum Ride series, right? If yes, read the next paragraph. If no, the next paragraph won't make any sense to you, but I guess you can read it anyway.

See, the Maximum Ride series is true. Every word of it. There's a girl named Max out there. She's 14. She's destined to save the world, and – of course – she has wings. The only thing that's not true is the percentage of avian DNA in us bird kids (yes, I said "us." More on that later.) is not 2, it's 20. But that's a small thing, a typo I'm sure. What I'm here to tell you about is my life, not Max's. Although they do intertwine a little.

My name is...well, I don't really have a name. But you, and others, know me as Mudd. The full name I gave to myself is Mudd Hawk, but you don't really need to know that. What you do need to know is that I'm 12, and a leader of my own little Flock. Again, if you haven't read the Max Ride series, I'll be making plenty of references.

A Flock is a group of avian-humans, recombinant lifeforms, mutant freaks, whatever you wanna call it. We're bird kids. Kids with wings. Yeah, pretty cool, right? Well, yeah, except for one thing... it _hurt. _It hurt to become a bird kid, and people are after us now.

They have claws and teeth and all sorts of nasty stuff, and they're after us. They're called Flyboys. They were called Erasers, but the Erasers died too quickly, so now there are Flyboys. Big, evil, robotic wolf people. The Erasers were alive, as I'm sure you can guess, but the Flyboys are just as evil as the real thing.

Bet you guys that have read Max Ride are pretty bored now, right? Then you'll be glad when I say that I'm gonna start from the beginning, right now. So hold on tight, this is gonna be a wild ride.

_**Chapter One:**_

_**Run!**_

"This specimen may be the future of Itex. Yes, this one right here." I woke to the sound of a scientist's voice. I groaned a little, sat up, and looked around. Of course I was still in the dog crate. (Yes, I did say dog crate. I lived in one for 8 long years.)

I gazed out at the whitecoat that was standing outside my cage, and he smirked. With him was a trainee evil mad scientist. (_Yes_, evil mad scientist. Do you need eyeglasses?) This young, bright eyed, girl was looking at me in interest, with no trace of pity. Of course. The tours came after the training of how we were just playthings, just test objects.

So she felt no guilt whatsoever when she reached out and pulled out one of my feathers. "Ouch!" I yelled, having learned how to talk via scientist chatter. That particular word was learned when, at age 6, I bit a whitecoat's finger.

The girl seemed taken aback that I could speak, and apologized. "Oh! I'm sorry," she said with a worried look at her elder whitecoat, who laughed.

"No need to apologize to the Experiment, Marcia," he said with a smile, and herded her along to the next area. I scowled, and looked through my bars at Maximum Ride, age 10. Whose innocent manner immediately made me smile again.

"Hi." I whispered through the bars of my cage, and she smiled. "When are we gonna escape?"

Max just shrugged. Surprisingly, considering her adept manner now, she was very shy, and quiet back in the bad old days. She knew how to talk, but just...didn't.

I looked around at the whole room. Hopefully this was how my day could go. Just sitting in my dog crate, not getting dissected or tested or hurt for one day. Just _one day_. I didn't want much, just no intense pain for a few days. Or weeks. Or out of here. I laughed a little at the thought. Out of this place? I didn't even know whether the whole world was like this or not.

Little did I know that I was going to escape soon.

Another thing I didn't know was that I was going to become very unconscious in the next 3 seconds. I woke up on the floor of my dog crate, not remembering falling asleep. Yeah, life was crazy like that.

Max looked up, and held up 3 fingers. Then pointed at a clock. "Max?" I said, and she cocked her head, like a curious puppy. "I know that you mean 3 o'clock, but could you talk?" I would have said "please" if I had known such a word existed. The whitecoats weren't too polite, so I'd never heard it before.

Max nodded. "But what if there're bugs in the room?" she whispered, and I saw the legitimacy of the question. I shrugged, and she continued. "Well, anyway, at 3 o'clock, Jeb's gonna come in here and unlock our cages, and then we gotta run. But we gotta be quick."

I thought about this for a moment, and then agreed. It sounded like a great plan at the time, and turned out to be a great plan later.


	2. Finding and Meeting

Unfurling, Chapter 2

**Unfurling, Chapter 2**

**A Fanfic by xMudd**

--

_**Chapter 2: Finding and Meeting**_

The next thing I knew, I was free. But had no clue where Max was. I ran around for a while, hoping to catch up with her, but no luck. I had no idea where she was. Sighing, I walked away from the only place I'd ever known, hoping to find somewhere decent to sleep.

I was, in short, amazed. You would be too if you were 8 years old and had never seen a tree, never seen the color green for that matter. I finally decided just to sleep in a tree for the night, and find someplace else later. To my surprise, the tree was very comfortable, and I went to sleep immediately, dreaming about freedom and Max. Max...where was she?

I hoped she was okay... but I wasn't sure that she was. Or where she was... I sighed, and rolled over, watching the sun peek up over the hills. That was a lot of color, all at once, for someone that had seen only white, gray, and black before. I gasped at the array of pinks, blues, yellows, and a whole lot more colors. This was pretty major for me.

Then, interrupting my little reverie, a small head popped down right next to mine. I started. A whitecoat! I've got to run- but it wasn't a whitecoat. It was a girl. A little girl. She looked only about 3 or 4 years old, but somehow strong, somehow wise.

She was smiling. "Hey, are you that guy who, like, escaped with that scientist who was not really... mean?" she asked suddenly, and I shrugged.

"Um. Well, sort of. He let me – us, like 6 or 7 of us – go, and we got out, but I don't know where the other people went." I blurted, and then, "Who are you?"

The girl thought, _hard_, about this for a really long time. Finally I said quietly, "Are you from the School? Do you have wings, like these?" I slowly spread my wings, careful not to scare her, but she was unfazed.

"Yeah, I have wings," she said, nodding and spreading hers. They looked like peregrine falcon wings to me, and they were beautiful. They looked about 6 feet across, and she was only about 3' 6". (Yeah, 3 feet 6. We avians are pretty tall. I was 8, and about 4 feet 6 inches in all. Now I'm 12, and 5' 2".)

I loved her immediately, and figured we should go find Max. "Do you know how to fly?" I asked her on a wing. (Get it? How to _fly_? On a wing? On a _w_-- Never mind.)

She thought for a moment, and shook her head. "No. But I wanna know!" she said with an excited look. I hated to rain on her parade, but...

"I don't know how to fly either." Her smile slowly faded, and then she looked kind of worried. "But we'll learn together, ok, uh... what's your name?" I asked before remembering none of us had names. Silly me.

She shook her head. "Don't have one. They call me Subject 10.5, but I don't like that name. I like..." she drifted off, thoughtful as always. "Turtle."

I nodded. "That's cool. I like the name Hawk." I said confidently, having chosen that name years ago, after my type of wings: red-tailed hawk.

Turtle smiled. "Ok! Let's go!" she said with a grin, and jumped out of the tree. Obviously, since it's sort of instinct, she flew. I was thrilled, and quickly did the same. Then landed on my nose, because-

"You gotta open your wings, stupid!" Turtle said with a laugh, and landed with a little hop. I got up, and quickly took advantage of an updraft. Soon we were both flying like we'd been doing it for years.

I turned, and rose up to about 1,000 feet. Turtle did the same, and we scanned the whole state in about 2 hours. No luck. "So where do you wanna go, Turtle?" I asked her, and she headed straight for (what I now know as) Colorado. I shrugged, and followed her.

Soon we were flying above the Rockies, in complete paradise. We weren't going to tire any time soon, so we were learning how to bank, swoop, soar, and follow the air currents. So far we were learning a mile a minute.

I was totally absorbed in perfecting my banking method when Turtle yelled out, and Max ran right into me. _Wham!_ and I was hurtling down, down, down. Good thing I had already mastered the fine art of dodging and going straight up, which I did without a thought, then grabbed Max by her collar.

We slowly landed, and Max hugged me, nearly breaking my ribs. "Where were you?" she said with a grin, and added, "I have a name. Maximum. Jeb says it means the very, very most!"

I laughed, and hugged her back. Hey, I was only 8, and not too scarred by life yet. Yeah, I wish that was the truth too. So we had our little reunion, and then Turtle interrupted with a, "Hey Maximum! I'm Turtle, and this is Hawk. But I think you already know Hawk, because you're squeezing him and stuff."

Max turned, and smiled. "Hey, Turtle. That's a pretty awesome name. You can call me Max for short...and you're name is Hawk? Like after your DNA?" I nodded, the grin still there. Then Max shook her head, a look of worry on her face. "We gotta get you home, Hawk!" she said, and in no time we had landed at their M-shaped house, the rest of the kids swarming us.

Max grinned. "They all have names now! Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy, Angel. And Maximum. And we have last names! Well, only one for all of us. Ride."

So for that moment, I was Hawk Ride, and I was just another kid in a world of kids. Turtle and I joined what is now the Flock, and had a great 2 years. Then, when Jeb left, we did too. We were slowly becoming separate from the rest, somehow, and I felt we should go our own way.

Little did I know that that move would change my life forever, and make my life my own, and not Max's. I had never considered Turtle and I to be a Flock, but now we were one.

Now we, just us two, made up our very own Flock. _My _very own Flock.

And soon, there would be 2 more in our group. We would be joined by two people that right now, I would die for.


	3. The Twins

A couple months later, we found the twins

**Unfurling: A Maximum Ride Fanfic**

**Written by Mudd**

_**Chapter 3: The Twins**_

A couple months later, we found the twins. They were just barely 5 years old, and were huddled together in a bus shelter. Turtle and I were walking around in the New York area, and they were just sitting there.

One of them – I don't know which one for sure, but probably Sting, because he has an issue with that sort of thing – had part of their wing sticking out, so I whispered in his ear, "The down in your jacket looks suspiciously like a real wing! Crazy, huh?"

Watching him jump was the funniest thing _ever_. And I do mean that. I must have laughed for 10 minutes before he finally looked at me with a sly glint in his green eyes. "You have them too, don't you?" he said in a little-kid voice, which is now_ the_ little-kid voice.

I smiled, and Turtle nodded. "Yeah, we have them too. By the way, my name is Turtle and he's Hawk and we have our own flock so do you wanna join it? If you would then we can be your family, and-"

Obviously, I interrupted her. "Turtle." I said firmly, and she shut up. Then I turned to the boys. I had an idea. "Have you two ever heard of stingrays?" I asked them, and they looked confused.

Who is now Ray shook his head. "No, I don't think so..." he said uncertainly, and I took out a photo that I carried with me all the time, along with one of a turtle, and one of a mud puddle. "This is a stingray." I said, and explained all about the stinger and the jelly-like texture. Then I asked a question that changed these kids' destiny. "Would you like that to be your names?"

Obviously, they exploded with joy, then had their own ideas. They both wanted to be Sting. But soon, we got that figured out, and Sting and Ray were added to the flock. That was a great day.

And, a few days later, Ray ran off because he'd seen this cute puppy for sale at a random street corner and wanted it. I, like the good leader I was, said no, and he, like the 5 year old he was, cried. Of course that made me feel really guilty, but we still couldn't haul a puppy around, so I was firm.

Yay Mudd, right? Well, Ray snuck off to get his puppy, and got lost. Want to hear the story? Well, here it is:

"Mudd! Mudd! Ray's gone! My brother is _gone_, Mudd! Aw, c'mon Mudd, you've gotta wake up! 'Cause my brother is not here and I need him so badly that I could cry! _Mudd_!"

This was what I woke up to. This shrill, whiny little voice that just made my insides squirm. The little kid voice. I rolled over, groaning as I went, then remembered I was in a tree, and unfurled my wings, so I didn't fall to the ground. "Sting, you little stinker. I almost cracked my head open." I said, always so dainty and polite.

He shook his head, and punched me in the back. I whipped around, putting him into a fierce arm-and-head-lock, then realized that he was no threat. Well, his so-called "attack" had done its job, waking me up completely. Then he tried again, this time in a more sophisticated tone.

"Mudd, Ray's gone. And I don't know where. Please help me find him," he said pleadingly.

Turtle, of course, was still asleep. That was just so like her that I wanted to, like, scream. Which, of course, I didn't. Instead I said flatly, "Wake Turtle. Then go."

Sting's a good kid, so he immediately stood up straighter, and went up to Turtle, carefully positioning himself so his mouth was aimed at her ear, but not TOO close to it. Then, he yelled, "Ahhh! Turtle, watch out! Help!"

I thought he did an amazing job. Turtle jumped straight up, looking around wildly. "What? Where?" she asked frantically, before Sting cracked up. I, hardly containing my laughter, shook my head, trying to muster a stern look.

"Sting, that wasn't very nice, scaring Turtle like that," I said firmly, but when Turtle rolled her eyes, I gave in and cracked up. "Aw, c'mon, Turtle," I choked out when she gave me a fake-mad look, "You've got to admit that was hilarious!"

At that she cracked a grin, then, getting to the point like only she can, inquired, "Why'd you wake me up, anyway?"

My eyes widened as I quickly recalled the situation at hand. "Turtle, we've got to find Ray. He ran away, looking for that puppy!" I exclaimed, and we were in the air, searching, in about 14 seconds flat. Yep, that's how good we were.

So, it only took us about 2 hours to find the kid, mostly because he was flying straight towards us as if his life depended on it...which is would, if that danged child abuse law would get out of the picture. (I'm just kidding. I totally wouldn't _ever _hurt a hair on any of the kids' heads. Seriously.)

We did the whole "family-getting-back-together-after-kid-runs-away" thing, where the parent (or me, in this case) wants to be pissed at the kid (Ray), but just freaking _can't_, because they're way too happy that the kid is safe and back and whatever.

So, there's the story. How did you like it? Oh, wait, ignore that... you can't really respond via this book, can you?

Nope, I didn't think so.


	4. The Laptop Dilemma

**Unfurling: A Max Ride Fanfic**

**Written by Mudd**

**--**

_**Author's Note:**_

Please don't blame my strange writing job. I first wrote this particular chapter in the 3rd person, so I had to change all the "they"s to "we" and all the "Mudd"s to "I". It's sort of rocky, ok? But you'll get the point. So here it is.

_**Chapter 4: The Laptop Dilemma**_

And that's the history of my flock. Any questions? None? Great.

So, here's a random selection that I chose to tell you about. It happened about a year after finding Sting and Ray, and about a year ago.

Don't blame my strange writing job. I had to change all the "they"s to "we" and all the "Mudd"s to "I"...so it's sort of rocky, ok? But you'll get the point anyway. So here it is.

_**1 Year Later:**_

My flock and I were flying over the Rockies, looking for a cave fit to land in. We had just found one, and swooped in, when we all collapsed onto the ground in exhaustion.

"Whoa!" gasped Sting, the most easily tired of the group. "I can't even move my wings, man!" He elapsed into a fit of coughing, before sinking to his knees.

Turtle nodded. "Hey, Mudd. Let's see... if you have anything... on your blog. That should get us... energized again. Right?"

I nodded. "That sounds good. I'll get online right now." I opened his laptop, a fairly new Apple iBook, and pressed the POWER button. The screen flickered to life, coming on with a soft blue glow, a silver apple in the middle, but with no bite. All as usual. But then it wheezed, and shut down again.

Ray came stumbling over. "What's wrong? I thought you were gonna turn it on, right? I mean, like, that's pretty... off looking, to me dude."

I looked at the dirt-streaked, hopeful faces of his flock and sighed, muttering, "I guess I bumped it on the cave floor when we landed or something." I didn't know what happened, really, but I was almost positive it wasn't that. Still, I needed something for the flock to go by, and that seemed at least slightly logical. Well, didn't it?

"What was that, Mudd?" Turtle asked. She had heard what he said, but had to make sure she wasn't hearing things. Mudd didn't make mistakes!

I cleared my throat. "It must have gotten scratched up or something and the memory got crushed. We can... uh, 'get' a new computer when we get to Denver. Ok? It won't take even a day more."

Sting sat up, and took a deep breath. "But... we're all tired. Won't we have to rest? I mean, I sure couldn't fly yet!" he barely said, saving his voice.

I gratefully agreed to a short rest, and the flock slept for two hours. Then we flew towards the city of Denver, making it there in only about an hour more than we would have, since we poured on the power, trying to make up for the time lost.

As we walked down the streets of Denver, we saw a small Apple shop. They went inside, and stared at all the amazing stuff. Then, of course, Ray found an Apple Air. "Whoa!! Look at this!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, so that everyone in the store stared at him.

I blushed, but quickly recovered, and looked at the people. "What? Don't YOU think this computer is pretty cool? Besides, he's only 6." Then I did a quick 360 of the store. Sting was looking at the desktops, while Turtle was examining the more practical laptops, like the iBook that they used to have.

Just then, a store clerk walked up to me (I was standing in the doorway, looking around uncertainly) and asked me what I was looking for. I looked around to make sure she was talking to me, and not some adult behind me, and then shrugged. "A small laptop that I could take with me on flights," I said, then looked shocked.

_Darn it. I said 'flights' I was planning on, like, 'long trips' or something... oh no. __I thought, and tensed, in case someone turned out to be an Eraser or something. But Erasers were extinct..._

The clerk looked unruffled. "Yes, sir. Right this way." He walked over to the Airs, and gave an extremely long speech on them. I eventually tuned it out, but he was saying something about how sleek and portable it was. That was plainly visible if you just _looked_ at the computer, I didn't need to be told.

When he was finally done, I interjected, "How much is it?" I had a little gold nugget that he had found in the floor of the cave, but wasn't sure what it was worth.

The clerk showed me the price tag. You could just tell that he was thinking stuff like, '_This kid could never afford anything like this,' _and '_Where on earth are his parents, anyway?' _

Then I held up the nugget. "Is this enough to buy it?" I asked, and the clerk looked amazed.

"Is that... is that REAL?!" she asked incredulously, and I nodded. The clerk gave me a few computer cases, 4 computers, and 6 iPhones, which I started to hand out among the kids, then caught myself.

This stuff was great, but, obviously, we can't carry 4 computers, even Airs, so we had to ditch three of those onto some very appreciative people that just happened to be standing outside.

Also, cell phones? We were freaking _mutants_, who were we going to call? So we gave those out to some other people. Finally, we were left with only one computer case and a laptop, which were all we needed anyway.

Problem solved.


	5. The Giant Marshmallow

Unfurling: A Max Ride Fanfic

**Unfurling: A Max Ride Fanfic**

**Written by Mudd**

**--**

**Chapter 5: The Giant Marshmallow**

I glanced down at the marshmallow-like building beneath me, glad to have a bit of time to myself. I had left the rest of the flock in our hotel room, and was just circling around the Metrodome in Minneapolis. Of course, I didn't know that it was the Metrodome... I just thought of it as a huge marshmallow.

Yawning a little, I caught an updraft and went back around the other way, just savoring the sweet, cold air around me, and wondering how humans could possibly live without flying. This was why I had left my flock, those that I have to protect at all times, with my friend Emily, an 11-year-old human girl that took us in on one of our previous adventures. All because of the freedom, the peace, the... solitariness of it all.

Then, suddenly, I wasn't so solitary any more. Almost out of nowhere, this girl and guy – more bird kids, more mutants – come out and just hover there in front of me. I just shrugged, and raised my hand in a makeshift wave. I mean, they're bird kids, not Erasers, so I'm good, right?

Well, the guy just sort of blushes and smiles, but the girl – this brunette, blue-eyed girl – launches into a speech. And I mean a _speech_, droning on and on in such a monotonous voice that I had to double-check to make sure she wasn't a robot. I ignored most of it, but some of it went something like this:

"Greetings, fellow avian-human. I hope you are well. I am called Hayli, and my colleague is called Aadien. We are patrols of the Great Rebellion, quadrant 5, division 7. Are you a runaway of any one of the Schools or Institutes? We would like to assist."

I just shrugged, wondering how much I should let on to this girl. Finally, I settled with "Uh, I don't need help... but I was at the School and, uh, but don't bring me back. It was bad there." Lame, right? I know. But that's what I said, I won't lie. The girl, Hayli, raised one eyebrow, and the guy, Aadien, sort of smiled again. I figured he was just that sort of dude.

Anyway, so the girl nodded curtly, all business, and said, still monotonously, "So you are indeed a runaway from the School?"

I nodded. Hey, I was, and she asked the direct question. I couldn't get around it. Take into account that we were still "hovering", flapping a bit every couple seconds. This is very tiring, and especially so when you already had been circling for about 3 hours, nonstop.

Anyway, Hayli nodded curtly again. "Would you like a safe haven to live, temporarily, in?" she asked me, still droning.

I shrugged. "Well, we have a place we're at right now, but-"

Finally, Aadien spoke. "It's underground, kind of far from here, and you'd be completely hidden from the School," He said in a nice, normal, voice. Thank god for normal things, one of which I am not. "The Great Rebellion houses all sorts of... uh, creatures there, so you wouldn't be too out of place, and it's packed, so you can talk to some other hybrids and stuff like that."

I shrugged again, sighing. "Look, my situation is super awesome so far, and what I'd really like is for you to just leave me alone, and let me live my own life. How's that sound to you?"

Hayli scratched her neck, at long last showing some humanity. "Frisbee," she said nonchalantly, but I knew what she was going at. It was the same code that Jeb had taught us bird kids about, when I was there.

I shot up, trying to get out of the way, but was too slow for Aadien, who grabbed my arms and held them behind my back with one arm. Reaching up with the other arm, he formed a firm cup and firmly pressed it against my mouth, preventing me from even being able to move my lips, or get any sound up from my throat. This guy was _good_.

Meanwhile, Hayli just hovered there, looking smug. "Aadien may look like a teddy bear, but he's really quite strong, and fast," she said in a definite haughty tone, losing the drone immediately, since I was officially a captive now.

Suddenly, Aadien dropped like a rock, but Hayli just snorted and dropped down as well, catching herself about 10 feet above the ground. Aadien did so as well, but at about 4 feet. I nearly wet myself with fear, since I had never had a fear of falling, thanks to my hawk wings. But now my wings were pinned against my back, courtesy of Aadien, and I couldn't open them, so I was very afraid.

Hayli, of course, smirked. Then her smirk faded, and was replaced with wonder, and disgust. "I was really being a dork, wasn't I?" she asked, out of the blue.

I couldn't move, so I tried to make my eyes say it all: 'Uh, no, you were being perfectly angelic. DUH!!' Aadien just smiled, and said in a piercing voice, "Hayli, you were fine. It's necessary to get our...ah, 'guests' to participate, isn't it?"

I scowled. That was one thing I could do, and I was planning on doing it a lot. Then everything changed when Hayli shrugged, and gave Aadien a look. He released me, and I dropped onto the ground which was, again, only 4 feet away. I sprang up, and went into a defensive pose, snarl included.

**Muahaha...this is the first official cliff-hanger I've done, so enjoy your suspense! (Don't worry, I've WRITTEN the next chapter, just not posting it yet. I'll leave you to your expectancy for a day or so.**


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